Last month, french progressive quartet MANTRA released an album of a new kind: “Medium” is a record composed of two 17 minutes tracks that can be played individually, but also simultaneously. How?

The band unveils today a special interactive website that allows you to blend both songs in real-time, resulting in an immersive and unprecedented experience.

The band tells more about the album in this interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=EqfXpIfMKS0

Mantra set the bar really high with their new album “Medium”: a deep concept about the body-mind duality where both sides of the vinyl can be played at once. One can play it just like any other record - and the album has already gathered attention of many curious ears since its release in October - but of course the point is also to listen to both songs at once.

Today the band reveals the secret and unveils a dedicated website that allows you to do so, and even more.

EXPERIENCING MEDIUM: http://www.mantrafr.com/medium/experience/

You could try to listen to the two epic tracks “Body” and “Mind” at the same time by synchronizing 2 turntables playing 2 copies of the LP - and that would probably be the most authentic way. But it would probably not recreate the perfect synchronization the band has worked for.

The attention to details Mantra put into this album really deserves a dedicated listening. The band also wanted people to give people the ability to switch between songs as they were listening, or to change the balance between the songs during specific sections.

For this, they developed a specific website which allows you to do this in real time, with beautiful interactive artwork as well.

“It’s a pretty incredible experience, even for us, to be honest”, says Simon, guitar player of Mantra. “We know this superimposition concept is pretty abstract, and often people don’t realize what it means until they experience it with the website. And indeed, it’s really when you begin playing with the controls that you start to understand that you’re looking at some kind of three-sided disc, an object you can never really see in its entirety at once. It’s pretty fascinating.”

To go even further, Mantra made available the separate tracks for each instruments of both songs (drums, bass, guitars, voice…) in a Premium digital edition of the album.

This means that they give people the ability to remix the whole albu: for instance, the drums and guitars of “Body” with the bass and samples of “Mind”. Or have just the vocal tracks of both together.

This looks like “Medium” has just begun...

ABOUT MANTRA

Free spirit of the French metal scene, Mantra has been exploring the boundaries of progressive music for nearly 10 years. Ritual-like atmospheres on stage, shamanic or metaphysical concept-albums: the band cuts loose to give life to genuine shows, and goes as far as incorporating contemporary dance into its appearances on stage.
 

The quartet, now scattered around France, unveils in 2019 its third album, MEDIUM, a project that once again pushed its limits. Is the body inseparable from the mind? What remains of us after we die? With MEDIUM, Mantra questions the very meaning of life and touches on a form of total art, crystallizing the interactions between reason and spirituality.

Underlying theme of MEDIUM’s design, the complete superimposition of both sides of the vinyl prompted the group to innovate at every stage of its production: composition, arrangements, mixing and even mastering gave in to the exercise, turning this record into an extraordinary experience, where modern metal reconnects with the irresistible will to innovate of his ancestors.

With nearly a hundred shows behind them, including two appearances at Hellfest, Mantra has become in a few years one of the spearheads of the progressive scene. The album “Laniakea”, published in 2016, had marked the spirits by its ability to blend violence and softness into a prehistoric tale. MEDIUM sees the band fully assume its role of precursor, offering a record without any compromise, forever insensitive to conventions and standards.

Links
https://twitter.com/MantraFR
https://www.instagram.com/MantraFR/
https://mantrafr.com
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFq7ZV:zvJvyLdUsL_FnFpUQ
https://www.facebook.com/MantraFR